Wijegoonaratna and five other defendants have been prosecuted in federal court for their roles in the scam at California Hospice Care of Covina, where $9 million in bills were submitted to Medicare and Medi-Cal and $7.5 million was paid out for end-of-life care for patients who were not dying.

Owners of the hospice center were Sharon Patrow, 44, of Placentia, and her 69-year-old mother, Priscilla Villabroza. Patrow pleaded guilty in federal court in Los Angeles in October and faces multiple years in federal prison at sentencing next May. Villabroza was already serving a 4 1/2-year term at a federal prison in Victorville for running a separate health care fraud scheme when she was popped for the hospice care fraud.

At his hearing before the medical board, Wijegoonaratna did not testify but he did submit court transcripts to show how his side of the California Hospice Care case was presented as well as documents regarding the grounds his lawyers will bring up on appeal. The physician claims he only ordered medically necessary wheelchairs and other prescriptions for his patients.

However, Larson advised the medical board that no matter what the doctor's arguments were in federal court, he was found guilty there. Wijegoonaratna was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release (that he's serving now). He also must join the other defendants is paying millions in restitution.

Larson cited case law that allows the medical board to terminate a license once a doctor is convicted, explaining the board does not have to wait to see if he prevails on appeal.

Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before "graduating" to OC Weekly in 1995 as the paper's first calendar editor. He has contributed as a freelance editor and writer to several publications and been the subject of or featured in several reports online, in print and on the radio and television. One of countless times he returned to his Costa Mesa, CA, home with a bounty of awards from a journalism competition, his wife told him to take out the trash.